When people joke about Indiana I laugh my ass off. I understand the commentary; I'm not from Indiana, but I'm from the mid-west, and share many of the laughable traits that are commonly picked on. Similarly, designers may not be as overtly preposterous as our fine art cousins, but we're not all that different, and our industry is marked by generous amounts of bullshit and absurdity.
We do, after all, wave our hands about when talking about concepts, claiming that the tight radii connote strength and durability- which is brand appropriate because of x and y-and will thus build brand equity and meet the needs of the consumers of this strong and durable brand. Our hair may not be as unconventional as the typical artist's, but it's still overly styled and gelled, crafted to complement our tight jeans, interesting eye wear and pointy European shoes. We may not be dramatic, but we're certainly a wee bit ridiculous.
What is it that separates art and design? Both try to summon a particular reaction from the audience, be it a consumer's satisfaction in how "clean" the soap dish makes their bathroom feel or a gallery-goer's disgust at an art piece constructed of rotting food. The objective, in many ways, is the same: we want make people feel something particular and influence them in one way or another. We define which reactions we wish to arouse and go about arousing them using tried and true methods.
The difference is in the focus of the work being created. Is the creator focused on the user or on his or herself? Is it created as an outlet of self expression that goes on to influence the individuals who are exposed to it, or is it crafted, from the beginning, with that individual in mind? It's always interesting when designers go on to design products that seem less and less like design and more and more like fine art. Yes, Gehry is a designer, yet his goofy rock sofa strikes me as something that should be sitting on the floor of a gallery next to an ironically-titled plaque. I can't think of a single living room I've ever been in that would harmoniously accomodate that piece of furniture. Did he have an end user in mind? Was that product born from the needs of a demographic or from the need to create and express?
If it is indeed design, is it good design or bad design?
I wonder if design could learn a lesson from those bewildering plaques, sparse galleries, and the absurdly-dressed patrons that mosey about inside of them. If we infuse the products we design with a little more self-expression are we breathing life into the project or taking a step in the wrong direction?
I think the most important question here--the one you're tiptoeing around--is "what exactly is art, anyway?"
ReplyDeleteI tend to prefer inclusive definitions. Without putting a decade of philosophical thought into the question, I'd suggest "Intentionally communicating ideas, feelings or emotions in a nonliteral way" as a useful definition of art.
There are elements of what we (as designers) do that clearly makes use of art. There are designs (especially ones I see in portfolios or on sites like Notcot) that function more as art than they do as a piece of furniture/toothbrush/whatever. Design is another medium for art, like acting, or drawing, or photography, or making games (which is actually a type of design, but I digress).
The risk of making a design more "artistic," of course, is the risk of reducing its commercial viability. But the same can be said of movies, or paintings, or photography. We face the same dilemma as any other creative professional: how outlandish, self-expressive, and "edgy" can we be while still convincing people to pay us?